


Spirit Guide

by SentientMango



Series: Soulmate September 2020 [3]
Category: Sanders Sides (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, M/M, Nonbinary Character, Nonbinary Morality | Patton Sanders, Panic Attacks, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-03
Updated: 2020-09-03
Packaged: 2021-03-07 02:01:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,449
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26269174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SentientMango/pseuds/SentientMango
Summary: Virgil notices a person he doesn’t recognize in his first block class, when he finds a note from them with a drawing of their soul-animal it must be a coincidence that his looks so similar right?
Relationships: Anxiety | Virgil Sanders/Creativity | Roman "Princey" Sanders
Series: Soulmate September 2020 [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1905670
Comments: 8
Kudos: 123





	Spirit Guide

**Author's Note:**

> Day Three of Soulmate September!
> 
> Prompt: You have an animal that only you and your soulmate can see.

Virgil woke up to the slight vibration of gentle purring on his chest. Virgil’s hand drifted over to the cat and he began to pet her as he blearily opened his eyes.

“Hey,” Virgil said as his cat nuzzled against his hand. “You joining me today?” 

The cat, Sally, was orange with white splotches, and she had a scar running across her front left shoulder. Sally stood up and stretched, as she did this her tail flicked Virgil in the face. “What a way to say hello.” Virgil said as he rubbed his face where Sally had hit it. She leapt off his chest and began to walk towards the closed door. When she noticed Virgil wasn’t following her, she sat down and meowed indignantly. 

“Okay, okay.” Virgil said as he sat up. “I’m coming, you little diva.” Virgil stretched and made his way to the door. “My soulmate must be so dramatic if they’ve taught you how to act like this,” Virgil joked as he opened the door. 

Sally immediately walked out, her head held high, like she was making a point to actively ignore Virgil’s comment.

Virgil rolled his eyes and followed Sally into the kitchen, where she had made herself quite comfortable on top of the fridge. Virgil poured himself a bowl of cereal and ate it slowly as he scrolled through his phone. After he ate, Virgil put his bowl in the dishwasher and thanks to Sally knocking them off the counter, remembered to take his meds. The morning blurred by, and soon he was putting on a pair of jeans and the hoodie he wore everyday.

Virgil grabbed his bag and went out to get his bike. Virgil had ridden his bike to school everyday for the past two years. He had started when his therapist had recommended it as an alternative to riding the bus, which always had been a source of anxiety for him. Virgil unlocked his bike and pocketed the lock. 

"Do you want to ride with me?" He asked Sally asshe wove in between his legs, he knew she could teleport or something like that, she was a link between him and his soulmate, a mystical creature, but even so he kind of hoped she'd want to ride with him. She was comforting. 

Sally disappeared and Virgil's heart sank for a moment, but just as soon as she disappeared, he felt her reappear around his shoulders. She rubbed her head against Virgil's face and sat down. 

Virgil mounted his bike before reaching up to pet her one more time, "Okay, are you ready? Hold in tight."

Fifteen minutes later, Virgil arrived at school. Sally stayed curled around his shoulders as he locked up his bike and went inside. Virgil found his way up to his first class, it was on the top floor so Virgil always went straight there as soon as he arrived. 

Virgil was the first to arrive, like normal, he sat down at his table, since the class was mostly discussion based, they weren’t at desks like in most of their other classes. Virgil sat at one of the back tables but nearest the door, and grabbed his notebook from his bag and began to write. Virgil wrote whenever he could, he liked how it felt to transform life into words for others to experience, not that Virgil would ever show anyone else his writing. Virgil noticed a window in the corner of the room was opened and focused on that to start with. Students slowly began to trickle in, every face was familiar. As soon as his friend, Patton walked in, Virgil closed his writing notebook, but he tried to keep one eye on the doorway as people entered, Virgil had known them all for years and- Virgil frowned as his eyes flicked over a person he didn’t recognize. 

In the other corner of the room, facing towards Virgil, was a person with light brown skin and extremely curly brown hair. They had piercings all over their ears and one on their left eyebrow. On their ears there was an earring that looked like daggers or small swords in each of the earlobe holes, as well as several different shaped and colored studs in their ears. There was also a small chain earring that went from near the top of their ear to about midway down in one ear and in the other there was an arrow that was tilted down that was going from one side of their ear to the other. Besides the piercings, their clothes were also very recognizable, they were wearing a black netted choker with multi-colored beads looped onto it. They had a black cropped t-shirt on with a yellow sketchy crown design on it, and they were wearing black track pants.

Virgil didn’t think he’d ever seen them before, they weren’t exactly someone who blended in, or wanted to blend in for that matter. Virgil glanced at them again, he didn’t want to stare, he was afraid to be caught looking, but the new kid was just very interesting. As Virgil observed them, they noticed a few things. Virgil would have expected them to be emphatically talking with the people at their table, and they were talking to the people at their table, but to Virgil’s surprise, they seemed much more focused at whatever they were writing or drawing in front of them.

“Hey Pat,” Virgil said. “How’s Trevor?”

Patton opened out eir hand and pet the air with one of eir fingers, “He’s good! As tiny as usual!”

Virgil smiled, before his eyes shifted back towards the mystery person, “Do you recognize that kid over there?” Virgil asked Patton.

Ey glanced past Virgil and almost squealed, “Oh, no I don’t! This is so exciting, do you think they’re new?”

Virgil nodded, “I mean yeah, I don’t know what else it could mean.”

Sally, who had been curled up in Virgil’s lap, jumped down as the teacher, Dr. Picani, clapped their hands, “Alright, guys! We’ve got a new person joining us and the rest of the school.” Dr. Picani looked over at the person Virgil didn’t recognize, “You did just move here right?” The kid nodded and Dr. Picani drew attention to themself again, “Fabulous! Well, do you want to introduce yourself?”

“Sure thing,” they stood up and glanced around the class quickly, before meeting Virgil’s eyes “I’m Roman Darling, I use he/him pronouns, and I just moved here from New York with my twin, Remus.” Roman sat back down and after a little bit of banter, Dr. Picani started the lesson. 

Midway through, Virgil glanced around for Sally, it wasn’t like her to go wandering off. He spotted her curled up on the table that Roman was sitting at, and Roman was still doodling in his notebook or whatever he was doing. Virgil frowned but he supposed it didn’t really matter, it wasn’t like he could see her.

Patton jabbed him slightly with eir elbow, “You’re staring,” ey whispered. 

Virgil felt his face heat up, and immediately turned his eyes down at his paper and started scribbling nonsense to make himself look busy. 

When the bell rang Virgil immediately made a b-line for the door, he didn’t know if Roman had caught him staring but he certainly didn’t want to stick around to find out.

“Wait! My Chemical Romance, wait up!” Virgil didn’t stop but it didn’t matter, Roman was almost a foot taller than him, so he quickly caught up and kept pace with Virgil. “If I didn’t know any better I’d think you were running away from me!” Roman joked.

"Did you need something?" Virgil asked.

Roman shook his head, "Nope! You just forgot your notebook." Roman handed him his writing notebook, and as he did that Virgil glanced up enough to see Sally standing across his shoulders. 

Virgil tried to hide his surprise, and took his notebook, "Ah, thanks Princey."

"Princey?" Roman asked, "like Prince Charming?"

"I didn’t really have a specific prince in mind,” Virgil said. “But if you must press me, I think you're like Tony.”

“Who’s Tony?”

“Exactly,” Virgil said as he ducked into his next class. “It was nice to meet you Princey. See you around.”

Virgil took a deep breath as he found his way to his desk, his mind kept wandering to Roman, he sure was something else, but it was nice of him to have brought his notebook. Virgil opened up his notebook to the page he had been writing on but instead of seeing his writing there were two folded torn out sheets of notebook paper. 

Virgil took them out of his notebook cautiously, and unfolded them. On the sheet which was immediately to him, he saw some writing in fancy scrawl. Virgil glanced at the clock, five minutes to class starting, he had time to read. 

_ Hello fellow classmate! _

_ My name is Roman, but you already knew that, it’s your name which escapes me, mysterious hoodie dude. Anyway that’s not the point! My point is my familiar seems to have taken a liking to you! And now you might say familiars aren’t a good judge of character, but as they are a string of fate wound between two individuals, I think they have excellent judgement! They are spirit guides after all, protectors. Anyway Artemis has never led me astray before. Now I hear you, you’re probably wondering, ‘but Roman, couldn’t you have just done this in person rather than write this beautifully written letter?’ And dear citizen I could have, but you make me nervous in a way I can not describe, and I think this is safer. Anyway you seem like the letter type, maybe not one for confrontation. I have attached a drawing I did of Artemis while she was hanging out around your shoulders during class.  _

_ Sincerely  _

_ Roman C. Darling _

  
  


Virgil laughed slightly as he read the letter, Princey really had been a good nickname, but what was this guy going on about, strings of fate, familiars, spirit guide, that all nonsense just sounded like a fancy name for a pet. Virgil flipped the page expecting to see some kind of snake or something curled around his shoulders, but instead he saw what looked like a drawing of him and a cat. Virgil did hate jumping to conclusions, especially ones that left him vulnerable, but it looked a lot like Sally. There was no color, and it was a rough pencil sketch but as Virgil scanned the drawing he noticed something, not only were the splotches of dark and light in very similar places to where Sally had hers, but there was a scar Roman had drawn on her left shoulder. 

Virgil froze. This was weird. Suddenly his teacher began to start class, but Virgil wasn’t paying attention, he was too caught up in his own thoughts. Eventually Virgil started to write on a piece of paper, but he wasn’t taking notes. Roman had been right about one thing, Virgil was a letter type guy. 

_ Hey Princey.  _

_ Sorry my handwriting isn’t as over the top as yours, but I suppose handwriting matches the personality. I got your letter and drawing which you so elegantly stuffed in my notebook. But you know you were right, I am a letter guy, and I don’t love confrontation. Which comes to now. Hi. So, your pet, ‘Artemis’. Your drawing was nice... It captured her likeness really well. Although I think color suits her best, orange and white. Can’t really capture Sally’s vibrancy in black and white. Yeah, I wouldn’t have written this if I wasn’t sure but, you know I saw something on the drawing, a scar on her shoulder. What are the chances there are two very similar looking pets or whatever you called her were in the same room. I’d say pretty slim. So, yeah.  _

_ Sincerely _

  
  


Virgil’s hand hovered above the last line, ‘sincerely’, Roman would know who it was from, it wasn’t like he needed to sign it, Virgil left it nameless, and folded up the paper and frowned, he wasn’t exactly sure when he was going to give it to Roman, he didn’t really want to get roped into a conversation when he did it either. Suddenly Virgil felt something brush up against his leg, Sally was weaving in and out of his legs, and looking curiously up at him. Virgil ran his fingers over the edge of the letter for a moment before handing it down to her. 

The class was in the middle of ‘independent’ work time, but the teacher didn’t really mind people talking, so Virgil felt okay with whispering, “Take this to him.” As he handed the paper down. 

Sally grabbed the paper in her mouth and she didn’t immediately rip it up, so Virgil assumed she understood as she disappeared. With that over and done with, Virgil tried to concentrate his attention on his work, as he tried to ignore all the thoughts pertaining to Roman.

~~~

Roman was a reasonable guy. He was very fanciful, but he learnt not to let that cloud his judgment. So when he saw a kid in his class with Artemis on his shoulders, he convinced himself that Artemis simply liked him, and that was a sign. Roman was very observant though, and he didn’t miss the way the kids hand seemed to be petting Artemis, or the way he stared at Artemis when she came over to sit on his table. Even so, Roman wrote those off as seeing things that weren’t really there, he had probably just been scratching himself when Roman thought he was petting Artemis and he was probably just spacing out.

Still, Roman wasn’t one to ignore a sign like that completely, so he drew Artemis and the kid, it was rough sure, but he’d like to think he captured their likenesses. He also wrote a letter. 

When Roman had first come into the classroom, he’d noticed the boy had a black spiral notebook out, which he also noticed wasn’t what he used for the class, he had a purple one for that. The boy had shoved the black notebook into a corner of the table, and was talking to another kid. Roman assumed they must be friends, by how easily they were talking to each other. 

At the end of class the boy practically sprinted out of the room, and Roman noticed he had left his notebook behind. Roman wasn’t one to let an opportunity slip by, so he grabbed the notebook, shoved the papers in it, and hurried after the guy.

He wasn’t sure what he had been expecting to happen after he gave the person, who Roman still didn’t know his name, the letter and picture but what he certainly wasn’t expecting was Artemis to appear in his class with a paper in her mouth. She trotted over to him looking very pleased with herself and dropped the paper on his desk. Roman wasn’t exactly sure what everyone else was seeing, but a few people definitely shot him some weird looks. 

As quietly as he could, he unfolded the paper. Jagged letters formed uneven words on the page, Roman took a deep breath before he began to read.

_ Hey Princey. _

Roman’s heart squeezed.

_ Sorry my handwriting isn’t as over the top as yours, but I suppose the handwriting matches the personality. _

Roman was reasonable, but this seemed too coincidental to be a coincidence.

_ I got your letter and drawing which you so elegantly stuffed in my notebook. _

Roman smiled to himself, there was no way this was anyone other than that boy in the hoodie Artemis had been all friendly with. 

_ But you know you were right, I am a letter guy, and I don’t love confrontation. Which comes to now. Hi. So, your pet, ‘Artemis’. _

Roman rolled his eyes, Artemis was so much more than a pet.

_ Your drawing was nice... It captured her likeness really well. Although I think color suits her best, orange and white. Can’t really capture Sally’s vibrancy in black and white.  _

If Roman wasn’t sure before he was now. But naming Artemis Sally? What an ordinary name for an extravagant cat such as Artemis.

_ Yeah, I wouldn’t have written this if I wasn’t sure but, you know I saw something on the drawing, a scar on her shoulder. What are the chances there are two very similar looking pets or whatever you called her in the same room. I’d say pretty slim. So, yeah.  _

_ Sincerely _

Roman put down the letter, his heart was beating out of his chest, that emo kid was his soulmate? And Roman still didn’t know his name! Roman sighed his soulmate was such a tease.

It was towards the end of class when Roman got an idea, he tore a piece of paper out of his notebook and wrote, 

_ Won’t even sign your name? No matter, meet me at the big tree out front after school! We have a lot to talk about. _

_ Sincerely yours  _

Roman added a heart at the end before handing the letter to Artemis. She grabbed the letter and ran out of the room. Roman smiled to himself as he turned his attention back to the class. He’d found his soulmate. He’d really found his soulmate! Maybe moving hadn’t been such a bad thing.

~~~

The bell rang and Virgil got up slowly and began to pack his stuff back into his bag. Sally hadn’t come back yet, and Virgil was starting to get worried, not with whether or not Sally was okay, Virgil knew she would be fine, but he was worried about Roman. Maybe he wasn’t Virgil’s soulmate, and he thought Virgil was crazy, and then he was going to tell everyone and-

Virgil began to panic, his thoughts were swirling and he couldn’t breathe.

Virgil stumbled into an empty staircase and sat down against the wall, everything was bad. Something soft touched his leg, Virgil curled in on himself, tightening the grip around his legs.

It brushed against his leg again, and then it was gone, Virgil almost wished it would come back. 

After a little while the warning bell went off, he was going to be late for class. He needed to get up, but he couldn't. 

“Hey-”

He couldn’t breathe.

“Are you okay?”

He shook his head as pressed his palms into his eyes.

“Um okay do you need me to get someone?”

Virgil shook his head again as he tried to focus on his breathing the last thing he needed was more people.

“Do you want to hold Arte- er Sally?”

Sally? Where was she? 

“She’s right here,” something soft and warm was placed in his arms.

Sally began to purr and Virgil felt himself slowly relax as his breath synced with Sally's breathing. Eventually Virgil felt himself relax as his breathing became more steady. After a while, he slowly opened his eyes, Roman was sitting by his side playing with a small piece of paper. 

“Roman?” Virgil asked, his voice felt small, “what are you doing here?”

Roman looked up sharply, “You’re okay!” He said and sighed as he sat back. “I was gonna-” he trailed off before shaking his head, “nevermind, it doesn’t matter. I’m glad Artemis helped.”

Virgil nodded and adjusted himself against the wall, “Um… I should get to class.” 

“Wait, hold up.” Roman said, “I’m not gonna stop you, we are very late after all, but Artemis never gave you this.” Roman rubbed the back of his neck and handed the note he had been playing with to Virgil. He laughed slightly, “She’s a slacker…”

Virgil took the note, and turned it over in his hands, “what is it?”

“A note, just meet me after school? By the big tree?” 

“Yeah, okay.” Virgil stood up. “I think we have some stuff to talk about.”

Roman nodded, and as they began to walk down the hallway, “You’re telling me!”

Virgil glanced over, “so where are you headed?”

Roman froze, “Uh, that’s a good question.” He pulled his schedule out and scanned it, “Room 216?”

“Oh cool, I'm headed that way. Let me walk you to your class, I’ll tell your teacher you were hopelessly lost and I’ll get a late pass from them.”

“Excuse you! I never do anything hopelessly.”

Their conversation dwindled, and walked down the hallways in relative silence, very aware of their footsteps against the tile floor, everyone was in class and the building felt quiet. However the energy vibrating around them was anything but silent. It was loud and exciting, and when they had to part ways that was the last thing either of them wanted to do.

**Author's Note:**

> Tumblr: @thesentientmango


End file.
